My Big Mouth - Funny Story #2 from Last Year's Appendectomy

Okay, here’s another hospital happening from February 2009's emergency appendectomy episode.

Remember when my brother and I were in the emergency room, waiting on my test results so they could take me into surgery for the emergency appendectomy?  How could you forget, you say?  That’s all I’ve been writing about?  Yeah, that day.

I found out there are rules for all the workers at the hospital.  Seriously.

Some of them are annoying.  Very, very annoying.  And before you say a freakin’ word, like there are reasons for rules, believe me, I know.   I didn’t get to this advanced age by always being a rebel without hitting some boundaries in my life.  But....I digress.

Every single caretaker that came into my room said something along the lines of “Hi, I’m Nurse Ratchet.  I’m here to take care of you.  What is your name?  (as they looked at my name tag).  And why are you here?  I was very polite, smiling as much as I could, because, you know, honey gets more stuff done.

Finally, my surgeon’s assistant, a pretty 4th year medical student, comes in.  I’ll call her Surgeon Laura.  (names and towns have been somewhat modified to somewhat protect the innocent.)

Surgeon Laura sits down by my bed, with my chart.  She’s all smiles, and bubbly, a beautiful young lady.  “Hello, I’m Surgeon Laura.  I’ll be assisting Dr. McDreamy during your surgery.  I understand you’re from Small Local Town.

I assure her I am.  Then she says (wait for it), “Why are you here?”

I turn my head tomorrow, somehow keep a straight face, and say, “I’m here for a sex change operation.”

Her face totally turns to stone, and she looks away.  I know, you’re thinking, “Oh, Janie - you did not.”  Yeah, I did.

I turn and look at my brother, and he’s about to bust a freakin’ gut.  I turn back to Surgeon Laura, and she’s still in shut down mode. ( Inside, I’m mad at myself - it’s obvious I’ve offended her.) Me and my big mouth.  I have a problem with that automatic zipper that should be installed in my mouth, oh, yes I do,.

I turn back to Surgeon Laura, and touch her arm.  I tell her I’m just kidding,  She finishes her interview, rather tersely, I might add, and gets up and leaves.  Soon after, I’m in the OR, and she’s teasing me about what I said, telling on me to Dr. McDreamy and the surgical team.

The next morning, at 6:30 a.m., she’s in my room, checking on me. Still about halfway drugged, I introduce her to ThatManILove, and tell him “she’s the one I embarrassed about the supposed sex change.”

Surgeon Laura stops me, and she’s smiling.  She said, “ i need to tell you why I shut down on you yesterday.  Last week, I was interning in a mental hospital, and I sat down by this person, and basically enacted the exact same scenario.”

Me:  Really?

SL:   Yes.  It really messed me up.

Me:  Why?

SL:  This person was schizophrenic, and it was one of the personalities talking to me, and it wasn’t joking!!!  It was a very uncomfortable situation.  After I figured out you were messing with me, I got a kick out of it.

Yeah, I can sure stick my foot in my mouth sometimes.  You can count on that.